Ukrainian officials have denied Russian claims that a United States-supplied Patriot air-defense system was destroyed in Kyiv by a Kinzhal-type hypersonic missile.
“Don’t worry about the fate of the Patriot [system],” Yuriy Ihnat, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, said in televised comments on May 17.
“Destroying the system with some kind of ‘Kinzhal’ is impossible,” he added. “Everything they [the Russians] say—can remain in their propaganda archive.”
One day earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed its forces had destroyed a Patriot battery in the Ukrainian capital with a Kinzhal.
Russia successfully launches new Kinzhal hypersonic missile.(Russian Defense Ministry)
“A high-precision strike by a Kinzhal hypersonic missile system hit a U.S.–made Patriot air-defense system in Kyiv,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency….